Failure Paths, part 1

Most of us try to do a good job taking care of our homes but sometimes what we do might have a result that we were not expecting.  As an example, if our goal is to keep the grass green and healthy in our yard, there are a number of ways we can do this.  We can...

Are Piers Install & Forget?

Many people think that once you have foundation piers installed, you are done and you can forget about having to do any maintenance in the future on your foundation. Well, that is not really true. I have gone on many, many foundation inspections on homes that have had...

Foundation Corner Cracks

If you walk around several homes in the Houston area you will notice most of the houses have a crack in at least one corner of the foundation.  This crack usually will be 4 or 5 inches from the corner of the slab.  Is that crack serious, is it a sign of foundation...

The Drought

The Houston area has been in a drought for the last couple years and it is affecting the foundations of most of the homes here.  In 2010, we ended up about 10 inches below the normal amount of rainfall.  2011 was even worse, we ended the year around 24 to 28 inches...